
(Welcome to “Notes on a Score,” GVN’s interview series highlighting the composers and musicians behind some of the year’s most acclaimed films and television series.)
When a film composer reaches the echelon in which they can create a “Greatest Hits” compilation – the likes of which are rare – they would likely go about it the old fashioned way: put together their most recognizable tunes and string them together in the original form for listeners to reminisce without much thought. This is not what Michael Giacchino had in mind.
“It felt boring to stick all of the original recordings onto an LP,” he tells Geek Vibes Nation from his home studio in Los Angeles. “Nowadays, you can just make that yourself with iTunes or Spotify. You can just collect it all and make a playlist.” So, what did he decide to do instead? Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen, Volume 1, a collection of over 20 of his favorite themes rearranged and reorchestrated in the style of one of his favorite musical genres: 50s and mid-60s exotica, a tropical soundscape originated by masters like Arthur Lyman and Martin Denny.
“I love this style of music so much,” he explains, beaming. “I have since I was a kid, and I still listen to so much of it now. [Lyman, Denny, et. al] were out there telling stories and creating worlds for the listeners. Every time I listen to one of those albums, I am magically transported to a fantasy place that doesn’t exist in real life but could exist in my head. I always thought if I were ever to get to a place where I could do a greatest hits type of a thing, I would want to do it in that genre.”

Fans of Giacchino’s work may be surprised at his decision to so radically reinvent music that is instantly iconic. However, those who give the album just a quick listen will instantly recognize many of the maestro’s beautiful themes – from Pixar films like The Incredibles and Up to franchises like Star Trek and Mission: Impossible – but simply stripped of their orchestral trappings. In trading drum sets for bongos and horns for vibraphones, Giacchino’s themes are softer and warmer but no less resonant.
However, for every iconic theme on the album, there are two or three surprises. Fans will find themes from projects less associated with Giacchino like The Family Stone or Let Me In, and even renditions of songs from early video game projects like The Lost Word: Jurassic Park or Secret Weapons Over Normandy. “My hope was I could hit practically everything I did, in one way or another. Every project I have picked in my career has been because it was something I wanted to do. It wasn’t because it was just a job. No matter what I’m working on, it does mean something to me.”
In this special recorded edition of “Notes on a Score,” Giacchino sat down with Geek Vibes Nation to break down the curation process behind Exotic Themes, how he approached reorchestrating several of his selections, and his kids’ unabashed obsession with Speed Racer. Listen to our video conversation above, or read our transcription edited for length and clarity below.

What’s going on Geek Vibes Nation? This is Larry Fried here for a special edition of Notes on a Score, our feature series in which we speak to the musicians and composers behind some of the most hotly talked about films and television shows that you’re probably watching. We’re not talking about a movie or TV show today directly, but we’re definitely speaking to a composer who you should know very well. You’ve probably heard his work across a variety of Pixar titles like Ratatouille, Up, The Incredibles. You’ve seen his work in franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Trek, Mission Impossible. And today, we’re talking about an incredibly special project, an album he just released with the label Mutant, Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen, Vol. 1, a collection of many of his incredible themes from across his career, remixed and redefined in the genre of exotica. You probably have questions, I have questions, and he’s here to answer them. Michael Giacchino, welcome to Notes on a Score.
Well, thank you for having me. You’re really good at that, man. You just … boom! Bam. That came out like butter.
I may or may not have practiced extensively, because I have to tell you, sir, to say you’ve been a dream guest for this show since its inception is an understatement. So, it’s really a pleasure to get to speak with you as somebody who deeply admires your work. Thanks for being here.
Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Happy to be here. What do you want to know? Shoot.
So, this is kind of an unprecedented project, I feel like. And that maybe is a dramatic word, but when I heard the news, I was stunned. I think that a composer reaches a certain echelon where they can release a greatest hits album or sort of like a compilation album. But for a composer to be at a level where they can do so in this way in which they’re reviving a genre that I think even most diehard music fans maybe don’t even know much about, I think it speaks to a creative freedom that a lot of composers maybe wish or strive to have. Is it exciting for you to be able to do a project like this that feels so deeply tailored to you and your passions as a composer?
Yes. Absolutely. I love this style of music so much. I have since I was a kid, and I still listen to so much of it now between Arthur Lyman, Martin Denny, all of these guys who are just the kings of that. They were out there telling stories and creating worlds for the listeners. Right? And every time I listen to one of those albums, I was just magically transported to some fantasy place that didn’t exist in real life, but it could’ve existed in my head. I always thought if I were ever to get to a place where I could do a greatest hits type of a thing, I would want to do it in that genre. And I just thought it would be fun. For me, any project I take on, there has to be an element of fun involved, and that fun can come in many forms. It could come in the form of the people that I’m working with, the subject matter that I’m working on, or the fact that it’s a franchise that I loved growing up or something like that. There’s all kinds of versions of it. But for this, I really thought the fun could come from doing it in the style of this music that I grew up listening to and loving so much. It felt boring to stick all of the original recordings onto an LP. Nowadays, you can just make that yourself with iTunes or whatever you want. Spotify. You can just collect it all and make a playlist. Boom. There you have your thing. But to be able to wrap it all up and do it in a package like this, and clearly, there was no one better than the guys at Mutant to partner with on this, who I love so much. I knew that they would understand me. Not a lot of people would understand me wanting to do this. I like to call this “the album that no one asked for.” You know?
I mean, I’m not going to lie. I did think to myself, like, “who asked for this?”
Yeah. It’s no one.
But in a positive way. It’s very rare you can say that in a positive light.
It’s true.
I feel like more often people are like, “who asked for this?”
Yeah. “We don’t want this.”
Now I’m like, I never knew I needed it, and now I’m glad that it’s in my life.
Well, that was the hope. I hoped that people would just take it for what it was, and it’s a fun look back at all the work and projects that I got to work on and for the films that hopefully a lot of people like.

Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about the collection of themes we have here because I think conventional wisdom would suggest that if Giacchino is going to make greatest hits, he’s going put all the big hitters on there. But the great thing about this album is it features a number of your most well-known themes. You have a lot of Pixar, a lot of Lost on there, but you also have some films that I think some people, especially maybe newer fans of your work, maybe forgot that you even worked on. You know, movies like The Family Stone and Sky High and so many themes that people were like, “Did that movie have a theme?” But you when you extract them in this genre, you see that your love of theme has been there ever since the early days, especially working on video games and stuff.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, some of the cuts here are really deep, to the world.
They are!
Like, Secret Weapons Over Normandy, I was like, okay, he’s not messing around here. So, talk to me about what went into the curation because it sounds like it goes into more than what are the big hitters. There seems to be a bit more of a personal aspect.
Oh, yeah. My hope was I could hit practically everything I did, in one way or another. A couple projects have more than one track. Lost or something. But to at least give each project its own respect. Right? I loved working on Sky High. Mike Mitchell, who directed that, he’s an incredible person. We had such fun together working on that. And for me, it’s really like creating a photo album, in a way. Or think of it as a yearbook when you leave high school, and it has all the memories from everything. In that sense, I didn’t want to leave anything out. You could have easily said, well, I don’t know. Some of these films may or may not have done as well as they should have, but they’re still things I worked on. They are still things I’m proud of, and every project I have picked in my career has been because it was something I wanted to do. It wasn’t because it was just a job. I have always been super picky. So, no matter what I’m working on, it does mean something to me.
And I’m curious, what goes into trimming it down? There’s probably so many things you maybe wanted to include but didn’t. I’m curious, is there anything musical that you look at in any of these themes that you think maybe put them ahead of the group that you said, “You know what? I really think this needs to be included.”
It came down to main themes. So, let’s see. A main theme from each project. Now, a main theme from Space Mountain, there’s not really a main theme. It’s just the Space Mountain music. Right? But for me, it was about tracking the main themes. Now, “Speed Racer” was a little different because Speed Racer, that main theme I did not write. That’s the original show theme. But there were tracks on there that I did do, and “Casa Cristo” was always one of my kids’ favorites because my kids are obsessed with that movie. Obsessed with that movie.
Them and many others, I must say.
Yes! And myself. I absolutely love that movie, I have to say. They’re much older now. My oldest is 26 now, so they’ve grown up. But “Casa Cristo” in particular, that was a track they always made me play in the car when we were driving around. Like, constantly. We had to have that playing because they love that moment in the movie. So, sometimes it was choices like that that are more like, okay, I’ll choose this because I know that that means something to the kids. Or a track like primordial forest for from the Lost World video game. That was the first track I wrote for that game. The very first thing. And that was the thing that Steven Spielberg, after he had heard it, he had asked to see me. I went and talked to him, and he was just like, “I love this track. You have to score the whole game.” And I was like, “Well, yeah! I would love to do that, of course!” Because he was really involved in the development of those games at the time. So, it was all of these things. That one was important to be first, because I always feel like that one was the one that sort of started it all for me in a big way. It was my first big job. I had had little things before that, but that was the first. I guess I could have put this paper towel commercial that I did music for, years before that, but then that would have been going too far, I think.

You know what? It probably would have sounded great. I think you would have found a way to make it feel like it fits right at home. Because the great thing is I think that people listening to this album, they may be may not be familiar with the themes going in, but it won’t really matter because they’ve been reimagined in this way that makes them feel naturally like this genre.
Yes, exactly. The idea was that you could put this record on without any thought or care of the track that’s playing. Just enjoy it. And then if you have a question, you can always look at the liner notes. You can always look at the thing and go see, “What was that one?” And be like, “Oh my god, that was Sky High! That’s weird.” You know? “Let Me In.” Huh? You know, that kind of stuff.
Yeah. I want to also talk about the decision behind the musicality of each track. Some of them feel very stripped back. For example, the Normandy track, your “Medal of Honor” track, the tempo’s been brought down. They feel like they’ve really been broadened.
Yes.
But then you have some other tracks like “Enterprising Young Man” and the rat theme from Ratatouille. They, of course, can’t match the instrumentation of the original tracks, but they feel a bit more juiced up than some of the other tracks on the album. So, I’m curious, what went into the decision-making process behind which tracks you felt like still needed that juice and then which ones you wanted to really pull back and let the let the Hawaiian feel shine.
Well, Lost or Medal of Honor were always a little bit more reverent to me and a little bit more emotional. And especially Medal of Honor being with the subject matter that it is, that’s not something I ever wanted to take lightly. So, it’s not just an action … even though there is action music in there, it’s about people that went through an experience that none of us could ever or hopefully will never understand what it was like. That helps make those decisions. And then something like Star Trek was like, well, Enterprising Young Men, I was like, I don’t want to slow this down. I want to keep it sort of as it was and have fun with that, and that was really a blast to do. And then I would have these conversations with the orchestrator, Curtis [Green], and he would also have ideas. It was actually his idea. He goes, “What if we put ‘Married Life’ in 4/4 instead of 3/4?” Because that has a much more of the vibe of the Martin Denny, the Arthur Lyman stuff. I was like, “Well, let’s try it.” I was unsure if it was going to work, but it worked great. So, it’s a combination of factors that went into this.
Quite a few waltzes that you take from … The Family Stone also I think you bring it into 4/4, and it works really, really well, I think.
Yes. Yes. That was another movie I just love. That movie, I got to meet Tom Bezucha, the director. I also got to meet my favorite editor, Jeff Ford, on that film.
Nice.
And Maryann Brandon, if you’re listening, you’re also my favorite editor as well. So, it goes beyond just the music sometimes. It’s about the people I worked with and the experience I had on the project.

Tell me a little bit about the people you worked with on this project. Was it as conventional as getting musicians for a typical score. I imagine, though, there’s a part of getting musicians for this project that feels a little specialized.
It was. However, I will say that almost every one of these musicians on here are people that I have worked with on almost every score that I have done.
Wow!
So, it’s part of the home team. You know? When you have someone like George Doering or Mark Gasbarro. Mark has played piano on just about every single thing I’ve ever done from day one.
That’s amazing.
And the same with George Doering. I mean, his guitar can be found on just about everything that I’ve written.
So, they know these tunes. They know these tunes already.
They’ve played on them all. Yes. They’ve played on them all. And I also wanted to make sure we had a group of people that could not only play the notes that were there but improvise. Because there were a lot of times … each of these, I thought, “Oh, they’ll be two minutes each.” But then when I started, I realized the players that I have that I’m working with, I wanted to open it up and allow them to do a solo, allow them to do whatever it was we needed to do. So, on the stage when we were recording, there was a lot of improvisation going on. They had the main layout of what we were going to do, but then we would change it up quite a bit and make it feel like, “Hey, add eight more bars here. Give us a solo,” or “Add sixteen bars here. You get a solo, and then we’re going to do sixteen for you over there.” It was a constant, like, let’s just have fun with this and see what we can do. Let’s push it until we break it. So, hopefully, we didn’t break it.
Michael, last question here for you. We’ve got to ask because there’s still so much left in your library that could get this kind of treatment. This is very intentionally subtitled “Vol 1.,” I notice. Is a Vol. 2 on the horizon?
[Giacchino grabs a physical copy of the vinyl at his desk.] Well, if you look at the back…. [Giacchino points to an advertisement for a “Volume 2.”]
Oh!
So, yeah.
Okay. Do we know when we can expect the second outing?
Let’s see. It says, “coming soon.” [laughs]
Oh, boy. Like classic storytelling fashion.
Yes.
I can’t wait. If Inside Out isn’t on this Vol 2., I will riot. I’m just going to warn you right off the bat.
I think you’ll be okay.
Okay! Awesome. Michael, it’s such a pleasure to get to speak with you. From FilmScore fans all over, we are in a debt of gratitude to you. So, thank you, sir.
Thank you for having me. It was great talking with you.
Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen, Volume 1 is now available on all streaming platforms as well as on vinyl and CD, courtesy of Mutant.

Larry Fried is a filmmaker, writer, and podcaster based in New Jersey. He is the host and creator of the podcast “My Favorite Movie is…,” a podcast dedicated to helping filmmakers make somebody’s next favorite movie. He is also the Visual Content Manager for Special Olympics New Jersey, an organization dedicated to competition and training opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities across the Garden State.